Dog Day Afternoon Morning
by freshouttaideas
Summary: Set between the glimpse of Danny Crowe's butt cheeks and the even shorter glimpse of the Scrabble board at Boyd's bar. (Spoilers for 5.4)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: ** Don't own them, yada, yada. For deanangst, thanks for the support. You know they'll never tell us what happened...

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**Dog Day Afternoon Morning**

"No."

"Tim, down. Now."

"No." He spoke calmly, body still, hands steady and wrapped loosely around his gun, but his eyes were at odds with the rest of him – there was evidence of disquiet, of fear in them.

Raylan squinted up at his partner standing on the roof of his Lincoln then turned to look at the dog sitting equally still on the stoop of Dewey Crowe's house. The canine eyes too, seemed at odds with the animal's calm exterior – predatory, or at least that's what Raylan imagined he saw in them. He shook his head and looked again and this time he willed himself to see only a dog sitting contentedly in the morning sun. It didn't quite work. He cleared his throat.

"Tim, you're being ridiculous."

"No, I'm not. There are thirty deaths a year from dog attacks in this country, not that I'm laying any blame knowing how stupid people are. What's ridiculous is being afraid of snakes or wolves or coyotes – combined they hardly even count as a statistic annually for human deaths. _This_ fear is logical. That fear is not – it's irrational." Tim's voice was surprisingly calm and even, or maybe just controlled.

Raylan checked his watch for the time. "We gotta go, Tim. That dog is just gonna sit there, I promise you. It's okay as long as we don't move toward the house. Come on down." He finished his coaxing speech, snapped closed the clip on his holster as a show of confidence and moved a step sideways from where he'd been standing since Danny Crowe left them there all together, the two Marshals and the dog. It was a cautious step since Raylan was still a bit wary of Chelsea despite his assurances to the contrary for Tim's sake. It was a step that Chelsea didn't like and he lifted his rear off the planking and bared his teeth in response. The low, rough growl that rolled past the sharp canines and across what seemed suddenly to be a pathetically tiny distance separating the dog from the Marshals made Raylan freeze, sent a tingling of panic up his pant legs. He stopped, smiled stiffly at the dog, put out a hand and said, "There, there. Easy now."

Tim wet his lips, a nervous gesture, a dry mouth, eyes still intent on the sharp teeth bared with the growl. "Are you talking to me or the dog?"

"Why don't you get down on the far side and get into the car and open my door for me."

"This is a rational fear, Raylan. I'm not getting down nearer to those teeth."

"You gonna stand up there all day?"

"If I have to. I got mad sniper skills, buddy. I can stand here for hours. I'll even take a piss from up here."

The stalemate dragged on. Raylan and Tim stared at Chelsea; Chelsea in turn watched them, slowly letting his hindquarters settle back on the stoop now that Raylan had stopped moving. He barked once, a reminder of what was what, and Raylan jumped.

"Shit."

"Raylan, how about if I just shoot him? I can do it from here, no problem."

"You'd probably just piss him off more, he looks tough enough to take a bullet and still pull your leg off. Besides, you and me'd be suspended. There'd likely be more hell to pay shooting someone's dog than shooting someone."

"And you're calling me ridiculous."

"Point taken. It's a ridiculous world. So get down – you're not gonna change it standing up there."

"No."

Raylan shifted slowly to a more comfortable stance and Chelsea was on his feet again, growling. "Down boy," Raylan soothed.

"I don't think your charm's working on him."

"Don't think I'll try flirting, either. He reminds me a little of the bouncer at the VFW in Harlan. Why don't you get down and show him your Veterans ID card."

"No. He'd likely take my hand with the card."

Raylan tempted fate with another step. The reaction was immediate – Chelsea barked and then started growling again, somehow a different tone to it, more threatening than before, and he moved, aggressive confidence, forward to the edge of the short drop from the porch. Raylan cursed, slid his hand up and unclipped his sidearm again. He looked at his Lincoln, only six feet or so away, an infinite distance under the circumstances, and the door unfortunately closed. He chewed on some options but the best one involved talking Tim down.

"So, tell me Tim, since you're so logical – guns kill more people than dogs annually, right?"

"Right."

"Now follow me… You're afraid of this dog – thirty deaths a year – yet you'll stare down an armed man and not flinch and there are over 8,000 gun deaths a year. That is not logical."

"I'm not trying to rationalize any irrational lack of fear here, just my well-founded fear of nasty-looking dogs like Chelsea."

Raylan huffed. "This is ridiculous. Danny Crowe is sitting in that single-wide right now laughing at us and drinking a cold beer."

"Let him laugh. I stopped caring what people think years ago."

"Get down and I'll buy you a beer."

"Nice try."

"Get down off my goddamn car!"

"Fine, but you'd better have a gun out and aimed."

"Fine." Raylan pulled and aimed.

"At the dog, Raylan!"

"I thought I'd just shoot you and then make a run for it."

"That's not fucking funny!"

Raylan did a mental step back and reassessed. There was real fear in that voice. That was not Tim being funny or sarcastic. "I got a clear shot at Chelsea," he said, trying to calm Tim down again. "I'll shoot him if he goes for you."

Tim looked over to make sure, dropped his arms and wiped a sleeve across his forehead. One last glance at the dog and he turned, sat on the roof and slid down onto the trunk. Chelsea started barking when Tim moved out of sight.

"Raylan?"

"I got him. You're good."

Tim took a few long deep breaths, swore loudly and dropped to the ground on the far side of the car, then peered through the windows and moved slowly to the passenger door. Chelsea jumped off the porch but didn't come closer, the barking more aggressive.

"Tim?"

Tim was already scrambling for the door. He opened it and clambered in, shut it quickly, gently, quietly, before leaning across to push open the driver's side. Raylan covered the last few feet in a spasm of speed and Chelsea charged, jumping up and pushing on the outside of Raylan's door, slamming it shut in his hurry to get to his prize.

"Well," Raylan panted, "that was fun." He started the car and backed quickly out of the yard. "Maybe we'll get lucky and run him over by accident."

Tim was uncharacteristically silent. Raylan turned the car at the road and Chelsea made a last effort to get a piece of a Marshal and lunged at the passenger side door. Tim threw himself into Raylan trying to put a few desperate inches between him and the teeth gnawing uselessly at the glass.

"Jesus, Tim. Calm down."

"Fuck you, calm down. Mother-fucking dog!" He moved back over to his seat when the house and Chelsea were small enough in the sideview mirror.

"Put your seatbelt on," Raylan chided to take the edge off. "There are more deaths from car accidents than any other…"

"Fuck off."

Tim kept his arms tightly wound around his chest on the way to Cumberland, letting himself go only to wipe a hand across his mouth at intervals. Raylan let him have his silence for a time but when the knuckles were a little less white and the Glock returned to the holster he had to ask.

"Okay, Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected, so what's the story here?"

"There's no story."

"There's always a story. You get bit by a dog when you were a kid or something?"

"One year for Hallowe'en…" Tim let his arms drop, relaxing, and Raylan leaned a little closer, curious, "…my mom dressed me up as a fire hydrant. I had dogs chasing me all over town."

Raylan frowned. "Seriously?"

"No." A snort and a sneer.

"We've got another, oh, I'd say, half an hour till we get to Cumberland, and then after that over two hours in the car back to Lexington. How many more stories do you think you can make up in that time because, Tim, I'm just gonna keep on asking."

"Go right ahead. I've already got dozens lined up." Tim settled himself comfortably in his seat, the edge wearing off. "The next year, my mom dressed me up as a squirrel…"

"A squirrel?"

"Sucked my nuts right up into my stomach when that pack of dogs came at me."

"You're fucking hilarious. I think I'm gonna tell the whole office how funny you were today."

"You're an asshole." Tim ran his palms across his jeans, chewed on his lower lip. "If I tell you a story will you shut the fuck up about all this?"

"You can tether me in the yard with Chelsea if I don't."

"That's not funny, Raylan."

"I thought it was."

"You ever watch a dog fight, and I don't mean two pets scrapping at the park?"

"No."

"It's raw, brutal. They still do it in Afghanistan, out in the open – weekend fun for the family. Not legal but good luck policing it." Tim rubbed at the memories, fingers kneading into his forehead. "I watched one, made myself watch it…almost. Truthfully, you can't look away, or I couldn't anyway. Fuck, it's horrible but you can't help it. It's mesmerizing, the violence. And people bet on it and yell, egging them on, wanting to see more gore and shit. The dogs rip each other to pieces. They're ferocious about it. And I think what bothered me most is that it's… Well, it's no different than some of the stuff I saw people doing to each other over there – worse than those tortured fucking dogs. It's no different but worse because it's..." He was quiet again for a stretch then his voice was hard and he said, "That was not cool."

"What?"

"That bit about shooting me and leaving me there. I saw them do that to someone. They did it to a guy once, shot him and left him and let the dogs tear at him. I couldn't look away from that either."

"That'll stick with you," said Raylan, thinking about a man eating a grenade, wondering who 'they' were.

"Yep."

"Hey, look, I'm sorry. I wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, I know."

"You want to head back to Lexington? I'll come down myself later and follow up on Boyd."

"Trying to ditch me? No way. Art'd be pissed. I'm fine. Forget it. I just don't fucking like dogs that much."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Raylan chanced a glance at Tim, looking for some body language, a twitching maybe. "What d'you say I buy you a drink when we get back and we toast Lassie."

"Yeah, sounds good. I'll even toast Cujo if it gets me a free drink." The lazy drawl was making a comeback.

Raylan nodded, satisfied, everything squared. "Boyd then?"

"Sure, Boyd."

"You know I hate snakes."

"That's fucking ridiculous. What did snakes ever do to you?"

"I don't really care for spiders, either."

"Yeah, okay, they're kinda creepy, but you'd be better off hating mosquitoes. They're responsible for more deaths annually than any other…"

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	2. Chapter 2

**Dog Day Afternoon at the Bar**

Colton Rhodes was there in the bar with them. Tim and Boyd circled him continuously while they passed the time waiting for Raylan to return, stepping around the dead man carefully, an acknowledgement and then purposeful avoidance. He was more real for Boyd, Tim could tell. He imagined that Boyd could feel Colton's eyes on him, urging him to action, waiting for him to do something Boyd-like, decisive and quick and violent and vengeful. But Boyd had nothing, only looks and words with which to avenge a death, all absorbed harmlessly into the calm surrounding Tim, no channel through the practiced void of emotion to plant something explosive and start a reaction that would lead to the inevitable. So Tim wasn't really worried – not today. Boyd wasn't a hot-head and neither was he – an opportunity would have to present itself and this was not it. Tim had all the weapons, including Boyd's handgun, and the law on his side today.

He watched Boyd struggling, forced to deny Colton's claims on his friendship – for now – his frustration growing as the minutes passed. A small part of Tim sympathized. He'd had eyes watching him much like Colton's were watching Boyd this afternoon, Mark's, pushing each time he'd faced Colton, eyes that alternately pleaded for or outright demanded retribution for an injustice. But Tim wasn't going to give Boyd the opportunity that Colton had given him. Suicide by outlaw wasn't in his future. He didn't feel the need to have to pay for either Mark's or Colton's death though both men were wronged and Tim knew it. He felt it deeply when he dared, when things were level in his world and he could handle thinking about it all. But they were not wronged by him and they were not wronged by Boyd. They were wronged by something beyond any of their control, something impossible to aim at and bullet-proof even if you could. So he moved calmly, if not comfortably, under the murderous glare following him as he strolled around the bar looking at the ads and the pictures on the wall, counting the pool cues, eyeing the row of liquor bottles lining the shelf behind the counter, peering into the back room, his hand resting ready just above his sidearm.

Finally Boyd spoke to Tim directly, speaking through the specter at the bar. "You were in Afghanistan."

It was merely a statement of fact and Tim didn't respond.

"Perhaps you were you acquainted with my friend in your travels and travails. Perhaps the two of you might have established some common ground, an understanding, a mutual respect?"

Tim shook his head, ignoring the point. "Nope, our paths didn't cross until Kentucky. I find that kind of ironic."

"Ironic how?"

"That a former army infantry sergeant was looking to arrest a former army MP. Anyway, I never did anything wrong over there, at least nothing that would've had him scuffing the toes of my boots. It would've been hard to get into MP kinda trouble on base when the officers were finding enough trouble to satisfy us outside the wire. I was too busy fighting a war to get _acquainted_ with administration."

"My friend was fighting a war of his own."

Tim stopped his tour and turned to face Boyd. "So was mine, Mark, the one your friend shot. He was unarmed at the time. Are we keeping score here?"

Tim had put him down. He had put Colton Rhodes, a fellow Afghan veteran, down much like you'd have to put down a rabid dog even if you were a dog lover. A humorless huff escaped his mouth as he drew the comparison. It seemed an appropriate analogy considering how he'd spent his morning. _Fucking Chelsea._ Raylan was right – that dog had a big set of balls.

"How it pleases me to see you finding something in our subject of conversation that might qualify for amusement." Boyd hammered out the 't' in amusement, made the word very unamusing.

Waving a hand between them, Tim said, "It's our little game that's amusing."

"Well, what better way to pass the time than a game?"

"Hey, that's what we need – a board game. I'm bored."

Boyd produced a perfect grin, let it all go for now, opened his arms wide and said, "Well, why didn't you say so before? This bar is equipped with a variety of board games just for situations like this."

"Let me guess – _Risk?"_

"Now, that might get risky. And being infantry, I'd think you'd have a distinct advantage over me."

"Why do I doubt that?"

Boyd walked around the bar, ducked down behind and Tim twitched his hand to his holster. But the only thing in Boyd's hand when he came up was a box. "How about a game of _Life_?"

Tim cocked his head, frowned. "I never did like that one. Couldn't relate. It doesn't have squares on it that say 'Enlist, fight in a war and come back fucked up – go back ten spaces' or 'Get addicted to heroin – you lose, start over' and it should have a 'Go directly to jail' square like _Monopoly_."

"I always manage to procure the 'Get out of jail free card' when I play _Monopoly_."

"Yeah, I bet. They really should have more of them in the deck. It'd be realistic."

"Not _Life_ then – I admit, it's not my favorite game either – and I don't have _Monopoly_ here." He ducked down and came up this time with _Scrabble_. "How's your vocabulary, Deputy?"

"It sucks."

"So does mine. It's the disadvantage of a life spent endeavoring fastidiously to redefine debauchery into a quintessential form of hedonism, the panacea for the child raised in the sparse economics of coal country. Shall we?"

"Shit. I'm gonna lose."

They sat themselves at Boyd's usual table. Tim motioned for the outlaw to take a different chair when he sat first facing the door. Boyd grinned, understanding, relinquished the prime seat with gentlemanly ease. They set up, then Boyd started, drawing an 'A' and winning the spot. He placed the word VITRIOL across the center of the board.

"What does that mean?" Tim asked, unperturbed by his ignorance, adding up the score and marking it on his notepad.

"Critical or hostile speech."

"Oh, like you and me when I first came in."

"Exactly."

Tim nodded, sat rearranging his letters, then smiled and placed VODKA on the board using Boyd's 'V.'"

"Is that a hint, Deputy?"

"I can't drink on the job."

"And off it?"

Tim didn't respond, collected his new letters and sat back. "Your turn."

Boyd attached CLINIC to the 'L' in VITRIOL. "I understand your friend, this Mark, spent his fair share of time at a clinic."

"That's where we saw Colton that day, at the clinic at the VA – going to see a doctor, he said. I think he found something better, a dealer."

"Same dealer, I heard, as your friend was in the habit of visiting."

"The same."

"Your turn."

Tim added an 'A' to the top of CLINIC and spelt HABIT around it. "As in _drug_ habit," he said unnecessarily as he set the 'T' in place. "Isn't that what got Colton his dishonorable discharge and got my friend shot too? In fact, I could say it's what got Colton shot in the end."

Boyd looked at the board. "Is ACLINIC even a word?"

Tim raised his eyebrows, a little grin. "Magnetic equator. Look it up if you want."

"I will take your word for it. You don't strike me as a man to prevaricate, except maybe when you need a drink."

Tim didn't miss the implication of alcoholism, an educated guess on Boyd's part. Maybe he was in denial, but he didn't think it had gone that far yet. He questioned it constantly though. He didn't want to leave too much air after Boyd's comment, didn't want him to think he'd scored a point, so he joked, "I don't lie when I'm drunk either. In fact, I tend to get a bit too honest – pisses people off. I have been known to drink lying down though."

Boyd smiled a thin smile, looked again at the board. "Nice placement. You've played before."

"There was usually a board on base. Shit,_ I_ was usually bored on base, at least back in Georgia on off days. Why else would someone like me play Scrabble? Your turn."

Boyd placed REAPER on VITRIOL and Tim slapped RIFLE on REAPER.

"I'm detecting a theme here with you," said Tim.

Boyd placed a 'D' at the end of RIFLE and spelt DEATH on a triple-word score.

"Nice." Tim added in Boyd's score. "And definitely a theme. Do you always play this way?"

"I don't _play_ at anything."

"I do. Just about everything, unless I have a gun in my hand. I never play with a gun in my hand."

"Your turn, Deputy."

Raylan walked in almost two hours later. Boyd had won the first game easily and he and Tim were in the middle of a second. Raylan turned the board to have a look, figured he could guess which words were played by which man and who was winning. He waited until they'd left Boyd's bar and were in the car to comment.

"I would've paid to be a fly on the wall – you and Boyd Crowder in a room alone for two hours – and I don't usually have any desire to be a fly on the wall."

"I've noticed that about you."

Raylan flicked his eyes over to Tim, back to the road. "So?"

"So?"

"What did you two talk about?"

"It's more what we didn't talk about."

"That'd be just like Boyd."

Tim nodded, didn't say much else.

"Colton Rhodes?" Raylan took a stab.

"What else do Boyd and I have in common? You, I guess, but there's not nearly enough there to pass two hours."

Raylan chuckled and waited for more. None came. "You okay?"

Tim shrugged. "Fine."

Raylan waited again for more. Again, none came. "DOG? Could you come up with nothing better than DOG?"

"I had shitty letters."

"Uh-huh."

"And anyway, you try sitting in a bar for two hours and not having a drink. It was messing with my thinking."

Raylan checked his watch. "If we hurry, we might make it back to Lexington in time for the last few minutes of happy hour."

"Better step on it."

Raylan pushed a little harder on the accelerator and headed for the interstate.

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